Roots
by Disciple of Ember
Summary: They dug deep, and clung to life long after the flower had been cut.


**Just a nostalgia fic to keep me from forgetting how to write altogether.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Ib or any of the characters involved.**

* * *

It started in the springtime of her tenth year when the flowers began to bloom. Back then, she'd been captivated by the sight of the sky above.

Blue, bright and pure. Not a cloud in sight to mar the tapestry of color hanging above her head. Before long she was lying on the grass, staring up at the evening sky without a thought in her mind. The worries of the day and fears of the future were dispelled in an instant, as though the whole world revolved around that color hanging above her head.

Blue. The color of sorrow. Of sadness. With it came the feelings she didn't grasp. The longing. The ache. The sense of something missing. She'd twist and turn the sensations in her head, but no amount of work could make them clear.

"Ib!"

Following those words, her world had shifted in the most dramatic way possible. The blue sky was washed away in a sea of gold, her view dominated, completely and fully, by a tidal wave of blonde locks falling from the head that had been thrust into her field of view and blocked out the sky as though angered she might try to look at anything but them.

"Mary?"

Her sister had smiled that day, a brilliant beaming look that had been filled with the unrestrained energy she'd always held. She'd smiled back. It was inevitable after all. The exuberant girl above her would never stand for depressive feelings. No matter what, she knew her sister would fight tooth and nail to drag her out of those moments.

"C'mon! It's time to go inside! Mom's making dinner!"

That had been it at the time. All thought of the blue sky, the blue feelings, and the blue memories had fled in the wake of Mary's aggressive happiness. She paid them no more mind as her sister had dragged her back into the house, chatting away while she quietly followed in her footsteps.

The next year, it happened again. As the wake of winter gave way to the thaw, and the petals that lay dormant opened once more, she looked to the sky.

Blue. Brilliant and pure. Sleek and untouched. It dripped down from above, leaking into her thoughts like trickles of wet paint running along the inside of her thoughts. The feelings returned to her. Regret for something she didn't understand. Regret for feeling regret. A melancholic sense of loss that was far too familiar. They'd wash over her in waves, dragging her deeper into the moment as she stared, unblinking, and the sky above, heedless of the dew-soaked grass staining the back of her clothes.

"Ib!"

The moment was thrust from her once more as her sister had forced herself into her thoughts. Blonde hair, twinkling in the sunlight like the essence of the precious metal it so resembled, had fallen over her and drawn the curtain on the sky above.

"Mary?"

The girl she called sister had been smiling that time as well, but it wasn't the same. A flash of something she'd been too slow to recognize had appeared in those eyes before her overwhelming energy had wiped it away. She'd felt her hand taken in an iron grip as she was pulled up from the ground.

"Let's go Ib! It's time to go to the park, remember?"

She'd smiled, nodding silently as she was pulled along once more. There was nothing more to say after all. Her world had been overtaken, and the blue had been left behind yet again. The feelings faded into the back of her mind, and she'd allowed her sibling's energy to drive the thoughts away.

Until the next year.

And the one after that.

And the one after that.

It always came in the springtime, when the flowers began to bloom. She would feel its presence, a physical force pushing down upon her, and would stare up into the blue sky above. She would lay down, lost in those boundless depths and swallowed whole by the things she couldn't hope to describe. Then, without fail, she'd be turned on her head by the sudden influx of golden light brought down upon her by the intrusion of a beloved sister. She would be pulled, first from her thoughts and then from the ground, by the girl who refused to leave her side.

Time after time, year after year, the cycle would repeat. Mary would always be there. Even when she had grown older, and had to move away for work, her sister had clung to her side and refused to be parted. Wherever she went, Mary followed, and their annual ritual would continue.

Until now.

In the spring following her twenty first birthday, she'd found herself on the roof of her apartment building, back to the floor as she stared up to the sky once again. Even after so many years, the blue presence she knew so well had remained unchanged.

Distant, singular, eternal.

She had lay there, gazing at it and greeting the nostalgic pain like an old friend. It remained, still as powerful as ever despite the passage of time. Where wounds would heal and hearts be mended, this presence had resisted the eroding touch of the clock and kept by her side through all the moments of her life.

This time, there was no distraction. She was allowed to stare, undisturbed, for as long as she could stand it. She spared no thought to why this was. Her mind was simply too focused for such a thing. For that day, her world consisted of the cement roof of her apartment building and the cloudless sky above her head.

Minutes passed. Then hours. The complaints of her body, hunger, fatigue, discomfort, all went unheeded as she lay there. It wasn't until the sun had begun to set, and the sky had taken on a crimson sheen that she managed to tear her eyes away. Slowly, she unwound from the position she'd been contained within all day and turned to face the image she knew was waiting.

"Ib…"

Standing in the stairwell was her sister, locked in the same place she'd occupied since spying Ib many hours earlier. She clung to the railing, meek and vulnerable, the indomitable energy she'd had all those years ago giving way to doubt and worry. Her eyes were cast down, locked on the floor as her fingers grasped the metal guard like a lifeline.

"Mary?"

She smiled. It was a tired, empty thing, devoid of the heartfelt warmth she knew her sister needed, but it was a smile all the same. Instinctive. Automatic. The drive to play her part in this cycle, even if she was now playing alone.

"You know… don't you…?" Mary asked her, voice quavering with the weight of all the things left unsaid.

"Yes."

She'd always known in a way. Ever since the first time she looked up to the sky. Ever since the start of the nightmares she pretended she didn't understand. Each time she'd see that face, _his_ face, out of the corner of her eye like the ghost of an idea long since forgotten. She'd always known, no matter what she said out loud.

Mary flinched, her mouth opening to speak, but no sound rising from her throat. The apology she could never give was there, trapped behind the dread, and anger, and silence that had followed them both from that day. She could never utter those words, but all the same, Ib would never have been able to hear them.

 _She has nothing to be sorry for._

 _She could never dare ask for forgiveness._

After so long, she'd become practiced at ignoring it. The duality of her own mind. The thoughts that had been haunting her. One voice always spoke out on behalf of her sister, and the other…

 _It was survival._

 _It was murder._

She'd thought back then, _what if…_? What if she could have changed things? What if she'd been faster? Smarter? More aware? What if she'd known from the beginning?

 _She's your sister._

 _He was your savior._

Could she have saved them? The cowardly hero in blue, struggling to protect the one who'd protected him. The lonely painting, driven to desperation in her need to be loved. Was there ever a way out?

She looked up to the sky once more, drinking in the sight of the red-tinged world she'd lost herself in.

" _There are no words so painful as what might have been."_

Mary snapped from her trance, moving to speak only for Ib to take her hand.

"Come on." She said. "It's getting late."

Trembling fingers wrapped around her palm, hesitant and fierce at once.

Without another word, she was allowed to pull her sister back away from her personal blue world.


End file.
